LARAMIE, Wyo. — Yesterday, the University of Wyoming’s (UW) Board of Trustees approved a fall semester plan that strongly encourages and incentivizes COVID vaccinations and will require masks indoors through at least Sept. 20.
The plan will also require students and employees to be tested upon entry to the university and a includes a mandatory education seminar on the virus. UW will expand the current weekly sample testing program to both vaccinated and unvaccinated employees and students, with three percent of the population tested weekly.
The press release noted that while the indoor mask requirement extends until at least Sept. 20, it doesn’t apply to people alone in their offices and private spaces, and there are medical exceptions.
President Ed Seidel also has some discretion to consider lifting the requirement in certain circumstances. At its Sept. 15 meeting, the board will revisit the mask requirement by considering data including case numbers, testing prevalence and vaccine uptake.
“Our hope is that the indoor mask requirement will only be necessary for the start of the fall semester,” Seidel said. “We will monitor the data closely between now and when the board revisits the issue at its September meeting.”
The fall semester plan is in line with the board’s March 26 vote to “fully reopen” the university “consistent with the state and federal governments regarding COVID-19.” The fall semester will begin Aug. 23 with face-to-face classes at full capacity, along with face-to-face student engagement programs, in-person athletics experiences and the like.
“We said in March that unless there’s a dramatic, unexpected development — such as an outbreak of some new dangerous COVID variant that is resistant to vaccines — we’d be back fully in person this fall. We are fulfilling that commitment, which has the support of the vast majority of our students and employees,” Seidel said.
As of Monday, there are eight active cases of the virus reported by UW’s COVID-19 Hub — five students living off-campus and three employees. The total number of confirmed COVID cases among UW students and employees since the pandemic began is 2,276. The positivity rate among tests conducted under UW’s random-sample program in the past week is 1.39 percent.
The Wyoming Department of Health places Albany County in the “moderate-high transmission levels” category, for which the state health officer recommends masking for everyone indoors. That’s in concert with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recently reversed its earlier guidance that those who are vaccinated didn’t need to wear face protection.
